Whether you're tempting Santa or hosting a party, you're going to need a gorgeous assortment of holiday cookies. Heck, even nonbakers get swept up by the sweet kitchen frenzy.

So here's how to amp up your cookie game, troubleshoot the crumbles and throw a playful, memorable cookie exchange with a little help from the Bay Area's best pastry chefs and chocolate experts.

It's hardly surprising that Alice Medrich loves chocolate, not just during the holidays, but all year round. The queen of chocolate and author of the new “Seriously Bitter Sweet” (Artisan, $25.95, 336 pages) brought the notion of Parisian-style chocolate truffles to Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto — and the nation — 40 years ago.

So when you ask her what she's baking these days, the list is long, luxurious and very, very chocolatey. Her Bittersweet Decadence Cookies are an exercise in richness. Her brownies are deeply delicious, especially when topped with almost-caramelized coconut flakes. And her rugelach are filled with cocoa nibs — the crunchy, roasted, hulled bits of cacao bean that release a deeply primal, almost wine or berry scent.

For Angela Gong Salvatore, it wouldn't be Christmas without her fennel pollen-dusted Anise Drop Cookies. The pastry chef at San Francisco's Waterbar has made them for her family for years.

Advertisement

And Emily Day, who runs San Francisco's year-old Flour & Co. bakery, is all about the classics: Peanut Butter Blossoms, sugar cookies and no-bake chocolate-peanut clusters — one of her family's holiday favorites — that just beg to be left out for Santa.

“I'm a traditionalist,” she says. “You can't fancy up Christmas.”

They've shared not only their favorite recipes, but tips to help home bakers up their game this holiday season. Even experienced bakers wind up with the occasional cookie debacle — “It's unevenly baked, it spread out too much, it completely flopped!” says Day, who dispenses advice on a regular basis.

So ask not for whom the cookie crumbles. It won't anymore.

Tame the temp

They may believe in sugar plum dreams and reindeer transportation, but Day and Medrich regard oven dials with a healthy dose of skepticism. Just because the knob or digital display says 350, doesn't mean it is. It could be 400 degrees. Or 250. It could be absolutely anything, says Day, who has lived in a lot of different apartments. No two ovens were ever the same.

“If your oven is way off, nothing will work,” Medrich says. “Cookies are little. They can overbake in two minutes. Get a sense of whether your oven is anywhere near the temperature it should be and compensate if it isn't.”

An oven thermometer costs $7 — a bargain when you consider the cost of those burned cookies to psyche and wallet. Stick the thermometer in the oven, wait for the oven to heat up, then check it. Dials can be recalibrated, but the fix-it-right-now solution is easy: If the dial says 400 when the thermometer says 350, set the dial for 400.

Rotate the pans

Convection ovens heat fairly evenly, but regular ovens have hot spots. Halfway through the baking time, flip the pans from front to back and top to bottom rack. Exercise “rotation anxiety,” says Medrich, and make sure you have good cookie sheets.

“Pans that are too dark will overbake the bottom of the cookie before the top is done. Burned and underdone at the same time,” she says. “A lot of the ones people have are too thin and too dark, or the one from the cupboard is from a million years ago.”

The best pans are inexpensive, restaurant supply half-sheets. Avoid nonstick and dark coatings.

Want to make a lot of cookies but you only have two pans? “One secret is to put all the cookies on parchment,” Medrich says. “While your two pans are in the oven, you're portioning out the cookies on parchment on the counter. When your pans come from the oven, slide the paper with the cookies on cooling racks.”

Repeat, repeat, repeat. You can't scoop cookies onto a hot baking sheet, because by the time you scoop the 12th one, the first several are oozily half-cooked. “But if your cookies are already set up,” Medrich says, “you can slide the parchment on the sheet and put it in the oven right away. You can go like crazy.”

Chill out

It's a rare sugar cookie recipe that doesn't call for a multiple-hour respite in the fridge. It's not just a matter of firming the dough, although that's a critical factor. The cookie dough needs to go into the oven cold. “If you let it sit around too long and it gets warm, it's a disaster from there,” Day says. The cookies “ooze and do their own thing.”

But chilling does something equally important, Medrich says, “Many doughs improve if they're allowed to rest overnight in the fridge. You get better flavors and better looking cookies.”

Make them cute

Once the cookies are out of the oven, be patient. Let them cool. It's tempting to start wrapping — or eating — the sweets. Day says, “I have a tendency to be, like, Oh! The cookies are done!” But they're not done until they're completely cool. Don't stack them, don't pack them and for heaven's sake, don't try to apply icing until every vestige of heat is gone. Then go ahead and get creative.

Karen Mitchell at Napa Valley's Model Bakery dips her sugar cookies in “goop” — a glossy, liquid icing — to create a smooth, shiny coating before adding royal icing embellishments. She keeps tubs of the stuff, tinted in every color, in the bakery fridge.

Day adds pizazz with the wrapping. “Use tissue paper to line whatever you're going to do,” she says. “Cello bags are always cute with a ribbon, or use plain Chinese to-go containers. Use the pages of an old cookbook as wrapping paper. Put your personal spin on it.”

Just remember to leave a small assortment by the fireplace. With a glass of milk and a carrot for Rudolph.

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — A West Texas man has been charged with impersonating an officer by using sirens and flashing lights to skip to the head of the drive-thru line at a fast-food restaurant. Full Story